A Guided Reading DREAM! {Joy Cowley Giveaway & Review}

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Recently, the sweet folks at Hameray Publishing sent me a few treats to try out with my students. I was so excited to see the books they sent, especially when I knew they were going to be by Joy Cowley. I mean... is there anyone who writes better books for guided reading?

I have to admit this... I was nervous to try these books out with some of my older struggling readers. I have 3 different 4th graders on my caseload right now, and one of them in particular really struggles with reading.

I also had to make sure the books matched the levels my kids were working on at the moment. I visited the Hameray Publishing website and clicked on the series I had received from them.

Once I was viewing the series, I was able to find the guided reading level and word count for each book.

They also included a set of guided reading lessons ideas you can use in the back of each book. It made planning for this week so much easier!

At the end of last week, I asked my struggling reader friend to take a look at the new books I had. I invited him to pick one out for us to work on next week. He doesn't get excited about much, (Anyone else out there with some *too cool* 4th graders?) but he looked pretty close to happy about the Gruesome series books that I got to try out. He even asked if we could try two of them this week. (Sure!!)

We pulled out the first one he chose yesterday - The Gruesome House.

It was a hit! The vocabulary is rich for the lower-level text Joy writes, but it was still engaging for this big kid!

I also used The Huggles series with a 2nd grader I just added to my caseload not too long ago. We started with the first book in the set - The Huggles - last week. This week we added Huggles' Cold.

I love the vivid verbs, with lots of detailed illustrations to support her as she reads. It is the perfect set of texts to help ease her into the next reading level. There are also lots of opportunities to study conventions (varied end punctuation) and why authors are using them.

Wouldn't you LOVE to WIN the ENTIRE Joy Cowley collection??? You can!!
Click HERE or on the picture below to go straight to Hameray's website to enter. The Grand Prize is AMAZING - a set of character-based finger puppets, big books, guided reading sets, and MORE!

The contest will run through April 13th and winners will be announced April 14th. Hurry over and enter today --- and tell your friends as well!